A feature article on KDE that appeared in the November edition of Linux Magazine is now available online. The article concentrates on deploying KDE in business environments and showcases a few of KDE3's newer features. It outlines how to lock down and configure a KDE3 installation using the KDE kiosk framework and how to set up KDE to use centralized resources for configuration and data.

Comments

I remember some years ago when I start a similar project under IE with Internet Helper Objects :))) but he died because of lack of documentation. I'm happy now to see the Kde team making so good stuff instead!

you'll have to talk to the Linux Mag people about it.. but they are VERY nice and very community oriented. i am sure that they would welcome translations ... email me privately if you're interested and i can give you the address/name of the fellow to contact.

waldo already answered the first question, but i'll add answers for #2 and #3..

yes, there are plans for a GUI interface to all of this. as Waldo pointed out there is kpolicy, but i also have my eye on kconfedit (also in kdenonbeta right now) as another tool that might be very useful in this regard

as for thin client set ups: yes, Kiosk works very well in those situations. i've done some work with thin client set ups and kiosk makes locking things down and providing standardized resources a breeze!

if you decide to do KIOSK stuff via the GUI as root (but please don't =) and you start by reseting your KDE home dir, remember that for root it is $KDEROOTHOME and not $KDEHOME as it is for all other users...

oh, and a major thanks to everyone (hey waldo! =) who has worked on the Kiosk stuff in KDE. it is one of those things that makes KDE a viable option in corporate settings. and that isn't just theory speaking, i've actually been witness to Kiosk being the deciding factor between KDE and other options.